i66 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap, x 



yet the beast was stone dead when we got to him. After 

 this we went down, negotiated the shoot in safety once 

 more, and had breakfast under the rock where Chand 

 had been left. 



Then he and the coohe were sent back to the camp ; 

 and as we proposed working along the western side 

 of the nala next day, he was told to send Mahamdu, 

 with bedding and food, to a wood a couple of miles lower 

 down, which that coolie knew of, and in which Abdulla 

 had camped with another sportsman the year before. 



We stayed for the day under the rock, grievously 

 tormented by flies, hundreds of which I must have killed 

 with a newspaper. Where they came from, or how they 

 were bred, I could not imagine. There was nothing but 

 rock, ice, snow, and a few trees and shrubs anywhere 

 near us, and it froze regularly between sunset and sunrise ; 

 yet the common house-fly was around me in thousands, 

 just as if I had been close to a sweetmeat shop in an 

 Indian bazaar. 



About four we started down the nala, keeping along 

 the edge of the main glacier, and soon met Mahamdu 

 coming with our requirements for the night. We camped 

 in a fine wood, my bed being spread on a soft cushion of 

 dry leaves between a birch and a pine. A fire by my 

 side gave me plenty of light for dinner, which Abdulla 

 cooked. The sky was cloudless, and there was a bright 

 moon, so we were all very comfortable. The last thing I 

 remember as I fell asleep was the face of the moon, nearly 

 straight above me, darkened by the delicate twigs of the 

 birch -tree, as the boughs swayed gently under the 

 influence of the night wind. 



